Without Warning!

This is a virtually spotless transfer and for Film Noir fans who have to put up with beaten up prints of unjustly forgotten films that alone I think perhaps has lead other writers here to rate the movie a bit too highly. It is a police procedure picture (with a surprising amount of forensics used for the time) that unfortunately comes to an obvious ending that reduces what came before it. It is especially well scored and photographed on real(and unique) locations that make it seem very fresh.

It is like THE SNIPER, though that film deals with wider issues and has a harder edge and most distinct style, where this plays out like a really good episode of something like THE NAKED CITY, or DRAGNET. The ending is safe and small. The characters although well acted are really stock "types" and don't really become three dimensional.

That said the first half of the film is very good and all the positives other writers on IMDb have said are true. But this doesn't ever become a drama, staying safely in melodrama land and that keeps it as mostly by the numbers B picture. Everybody does their job well but also safely within the confines of a programmer. The script just can't let them break out into a real classic noir.

"Without Warning" from 1952 is a low-budget production that concentrates on the drudgery of police work.

It stars actors I'm not familiar with, including Adam Williams and Meg Randall; Edward Binns plays a police detective). The film is done in a very natural style.

The search is on for a serial killer (Williams) with a penchant for killing young blondes with pinking shears. The police are frustrated with a lack of evidence; slowly but surely, they come closer to tracking down the killer.

At one point they send in an undercover police woman - lucky for her, the perp realizes they're being followed. This wrecks the undercover operation, as he's not likely to try and pick up another blond.

Figuring out from soil samples that the killer may be a gardener, police begin to canvass gardening businesses that may have sold the pinking shears.

The film concentrates on forensic work - today it seems simplistic, but back then, it was cutting edge. The focus is on the hard work that police do - no glamor, just a lot of worn shoe leather.

I'd been aware of this film's existence for some years, and although I never imagined it to be a classic, it did seem promising, given the highly competent Levy-Gardner-Laven team (The Rifleman, The Monster That Challenged the World, Slaughter on Tenth Avenue), and Adam Williams, a young character actor (The Big Heat, North by Northwest, The Space Children)I've always enjoyed.

On the most basic level, Dark Sky Films has put together a splendid, bargain-price DVD presenting a 35mm print that is flawless, except for a single, brief "cut" in the film stock late in the story. Otherwise, this b&w thriller is pristine, even shimmering, without speck, scratch or other visible flaw. Where has this print been all these years--Fort Knox? I was stunned by its beauty. A photo gallery is a pleasing extra, and the menu is imaginatively augmented with visual and audio snippets. Open the case and the inner sleeve is decorated with original ad art and a scene from the film.

As a murder thriller with strong overtones of police procedural (complete with v/o narration by the fabulous Reed Hadley), Without Warning is superior stuff, with effectively understated performances, smart, concise direction and plenty of suspense and surprise, including a shock moment near the beginning that will knock you back in your chair.

Williams is creepily attractive (or maybe attractively creepy) as the quiet, psychotic killer of women, with character vet Ed Binns appealingly dogged as the working-stiff police detective assigned to bring the monster to heel. Meg Randall is pleasant and convincing as the central female character(who ends up in considerable peril), and there's a nice turn (in this UA release) by pretty Columbia contract player Angela Stevens (Three Stooges shorts, Creature with the Atom Brain, lots of westerns), as a good-time girl who comes to a bad end.

As other reviewers have commented, Without Warning also is an invaluable visual and aural record of vanished Los Angeles, particularly Chavez Ravine. As archaeology alone, then, the picture is fascinating.

I can't emphasize enough the pleasure and satisfaction Without Warning provides. It's worthy on multiple levels; grab it!

Like THE SNIPER and HE WALKED BY NIGHT, this film follows both the police and the serial killer they're trying to catch. And it lives up to that standard of quality. As usual, the procedural elements are the weakest parts, with nice attention to detail but rather dry and routine (the corny voice-over, the forensic evidence, the false confessions, the rounding up of the usual suspects, the psychological profiling, the dead-end leads and near misses). But the film absolutely shines when dealing with the killer. Adam Williams (recognizable as the baby-faced baddie from NORTH BY NORTHWEST) is creepy without being at all silly, an air of quiet danger hangs over him. There's a thick tension and dread as he stalks his victims and evades the authorities, with those conflicted moments when you almost don't want him to get caught. The supporting performances are not as memorable, but overall quite solid without anything to complain about. The photography is generally excellent, with terrific use of close-ups and a lot of good location work. Nice score as well. Well-paced and riveting film with some very fine qualities, a nice hidden gem. I'll be buying this one.

The plot—a serial killer pursuing pretty blondes—is not exactly novel, however, the movie is better than I expected and very well done. Early on, the chase between cops and killer around the concrete jungle of LA freeways is both suspenseful and well staged. In fact the entire film appears to have been made on location, in parts of low-income east LA seldom seen on the Hollywood screen. For example, killer Martin's (Williams) slum-like hilltop neighborhood looks like the genuine thing, but with a good view of LA's downtown, plus the post-war grid of freeways slicing the urban landscape like concrete arteries.

Williams low-keys his psychopathic killer with little change of expression. That way we don't know what's boiling up underneath. Neither, for that matter, are the killings exploited for shock value. Instead the emphasis is on suspense as we follow the police investigators' attempts to track down the madman before the pile of blonde corpses gets higher. The influence of documentary-like approach to police methods is evident throughout. This was, after all, the era of Dragnet on TV. The movie also has a number of good touches. For example, the police chemist who needles the detectives in low-key fashion lends interest to a potentially routine scene; or the little girl with her broken doll that lends poignant flavor to the seedy hilltop neighborhood.

On the whole, the movie is done with care and imagination, and can hold its own with many of the better crime dramas of the day. One thing for sure, it at least merits inclusion in Leonard Maltin's too often unreliable movie guide. To me, it's a rather glaring omission even if it is an independent production with a no-name cast.